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Historians of both Britain and Ireland have too often adopted a blinkered approach in which their countries have been envisaged as somehow divorced from the continent in which they are geographically placed. If America and the Empire get an occasional mention, Europe as a whole has largely been ignored. Of course the British-Irish relationship had (and has) its peculiarities.

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China wants to get its hands on some of that sweet troll money.

The post ‘Ratchet & Clank’ Director Signs On To Make Troll Movie For The Chinese appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

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Here's a portrait I drew of Stuart in his Norwegian jumper. He's not grumpy, he's concentrating hard on his homework for Russian class. Also, he has grown a bit of a beard over the holidays.

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Here are some drawings from the SILK Festival Green Room last night! I'm doing one more family picture book event today at the Skudeneshavn Culture Centre at 10:30, then a book signing in the town bookshop from 1:30-2:30, and back to London tomorrow.





Lyndy Cooke (from the Hay Festival):





And Rosie Goldsmith. We both love the colour red.

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Last night I sat through a lecture in Norwegian, which was great, because it meant Norwegian war correspondent Odd Karsten Tveit was sitting very still and I could draw him. Apparently he's a bit of a legend in Norway for not breaking stride while reporting in the middle of a gun battle.



And here's Odd in the festival Green Room with Uzbek writer Hamid Ismailov.



And here's my favourite drawing of the day, a taco-eating monster, by a girl at Sørhåland primary school. Norwegians really love their tacos.



And I really love Norwegian breakfast, especially the cinnamon rolls.



Here's singer-songwriter Maria Toresen with the daughter of one of the festival team. I love this picture, it's like an old painting.


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Today I wore a new dress by Esther Marfo, and here's SILK Festival regular, fab journalist Rosie Goldsmith.



My first event took place at Holmen by the sea, with a 50 teenagers from Skudeneshavn secondary school.

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They were a very shy lot - it was impossible to get them to say anything in front of their peers - but they were nice enough otherwise and drew pugs with me.





For my second event, two official representatives from Skudeneshavn primary school came to the festival Green Room to pick me up.



These younger kids didn't speak all that much English, but they were bursting with questions and the teachers very gamely translated for us when we had any problems communicating. They were lots of fun.



Lunch time in the staff room included 'teacher candy', which I hear you can find in every staff room in Norway. (The banana-flavoured ones are usually the last to get eaten.)



And my third event was at Sørhåland primary school. I think this is the last time we'll get to draw pugs together in Norway, and they did a good job.





We had a little bit of extra time and did some general character design doodling, and they came up with some rather lovely images. I love it when kids draw really boldly, in dark pen; you get some fascinating shapes.





And here's a little glimpse at where I've been staying all week. Such a lovely street, I'll miss Skudeneshavn when I leave on Sunday.



Big thanks to teachers, organisers, kids and drivers who made today go so smoothly!

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Today I visited a Haugaland vocational college in Haugesund, on the Norwegian mainland and made lots of pug-themed comics with 16- and 17-year-olds there. Here's a quick-draw comic I made:



To be honest, of all the week's events, I was most nervous about this one because of the age range; kids this age can be very sensitive if they feel they're being patronised in any way, and the last time I worked with Norwegian kids this age, they were quite sullen and wouldn't say anything at all, even if asked a direct question, for fear of speaking poor English in front of their classmates. But this time it was a lot better. The students weren't obvious candidates, studying hairdressing, interior design and other things not entirely connected to illustration, but they were much better humoured.



All but one or two of them wouldn't volunteer any ideas, but at least they didn't glare at me or get upset. And when I asked if anyone had any questions, they didn't, until class was over, and then a small core group of them came and talked with me privately, and turned out to be quite enthusiastic, and very interested in illustration and comics.



So I went away feeling much better about the day, that I hadn't been wasting time on them. We kept the subject matter quite light; I didn't want them to take their comics too seriously and stress out about them.



We did the same Pugs of the Frozen North activities that I'd done on previous days with younger kids, but I figure it's something I'd have fun doing even as an adult, so I stuck with it.



Here's a little peek at the interior, very modern and industrial, but brightly coloured.



I loved this dress on display in the hallway. I'd love to try making one, as long as I could make sure I didn't get caught in the rain.



And now I'm back in my apartment in Skudeneshavn, having some comfort tea, knekkebrød (which is fun to say), and a caramel-ish brown cheese called brunost (which is fun to eat, I love it so much).



Thanks so much to the SILK festival drivers, organisers, teachers and kids who took part today!

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Today was the first day I didn't have to take a nap after school visits, and thereby miss getting a chance to visit Johannes at his waffle cafe before closing time. I pottered down the road to say hello to him, and he wouldn't let me pay for my waffle and coffee, so I drew him a picture of Iris from Oliver and the Seawigs in his guest book.



Yummy Johanneswaffel!



And Johannes's cafe, just a few doors down from where I'm staying in Skudenshavn this week.



One of the festival workers, Astrid, took me on a beautiful misty morning drive up the east coast of Karmøy to Kopervik School.



This year group was absolutely wonderful; they were at that perfect age where they're getting very literate and their English is good, but they're not yet overly self-conscious or afraid to have wild ideas for fear of looking silly to their peers. We had a lot of fun. They were good at drawing, too; and drew large and bold.








These pugs really made me laugh.





And here are some of the pug-based Comic Jams:







Fun teachers:



And here's the second, slightly older group. We had something funny happen: we were discussing 'perils' while we were playing the board game we'd made, and suddenly we were hit with our own peril when the fire alarm went off. A lot of the kids in other years didn't know I was there, and there was much costume ogling from the littlest kids as I queued up on the playground with my class.



Big thanks to everyone at Kopevik who made the visit go so well, and to Astrid and Jan Arve for giving me lifts back and forth!



Oo, just as I was leaving, I hit one more peril: total tiara malfunction! Eek! I'll need to make a date with a hot glue gun at some point.

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Two more days of Norway school visits! I wasn't entirely planning to make this visit a comics-themed visit, but comics games work so well that I've fallen into it anyway.



I'm back at my loft apartment above the art gallery, blogging on their little wooden table in front of the window overlooking the orange roofs of Skudeneshavn, with Radio Norge playing... uh... Phil Collins... in the background. This evening as I was coming home from dinner, a young couple (Peter and Lisa) spotted me and said they recognised me from Skudeneshavn's top 'feel-good book', by Svein Arthur Kallevik.



Oddly enough, Svein Arthur spotted me on London Southbank when Philip Reeve and I were on our London Pugwalk, and recognised me from the encounter at Johannes's waffle cafe, even under the wig and icicle tiara! I didn't realise I was in his book, which was a nice surprise. :)



(Here's my drawing of Johannes from February last year.)



On this visit, I'm staying in the apartment connected with Studio 21, a new gallery run by Eli Aarskog Monsen and Ingvar Torbjørn Øritsland. For the SILK Festival this week, they're featuring the lovely graphic work of Stavanger-based artist < ahref="http://www.anettemoi.com/">Anette Moi</a>. The gallery's shut on Mondays, but they opened it up after my first day of school visits to show me the exhibitions. The prints are all very reasonably priced and I hope they make lots of sales. (You can see details about Studio 21 on Facebook.)



Check out Anette Moi's picture book, I Love Stavanger. Such pretty colours and wonky lines!




And these pictures made me smile, especially the polar bear.



Some drawings of Stavanger buildings, which made me want to go out and draw a bunch of Skudeneshavn buildings... (I hope I have some time to do it on this trip!)



Love her sense of design so much.



Right, back to school visits! The very first school I visited was Torvasted Primary School, and it's so brand-new that the building's only been open for one month!



Norwegian kids tend to be very cheeky, but this group was cheeky in a really nice way, and I enjoyed the visit very much. I'd only ever done Pugs of the Frozen North events as a double act with writer Philip Reeve, so I was wondering how it would work, but it seemed to go well.



We used pugs as characters and set off on Comic Jams featuring our pugs. (They tell me that 'pugs' is 'mops' in Norwegian.)



The kids drew quite confidently, it was nice to see. (In our Comic Jam, each of the four panels is drawn by a different person. You can find out more about Comic Jams over on the Jampires website.)



This comic made me laugh. I told them I might use the 'It is hurting' panel for my new Facebook profile picture, ha ha.



Teacher Evy Vikingstad gave me a tour of the library and I went straight for the stacks of Norwegian picture books, to see if I could find out about some Norwegian illustrators.



Some of the pictures in this book by Per Dybvig made me smile:



And then I got to have lunch with Headmistress Liv Hammervold, Norwegian rapper Lars A. Toennessen and tattoo artist Anders Meland. Lars and Anders are travelling around the country for ten weeks teaching all-day juggling workshops, which culminate with a performance of the children's new skills at the end of the day. They've been doing it for years and kids look forward to being in Year 7 so they can take part.



A little peek at the pretty, very Norwegian school lunch:



In the afternoon, I visited Avaldsnes School, which is very near the Viking Museum I toured on my first visit to Norway. There's an island nearby where more than 10,000 people gather every year to camp, in the old style, dressed as Vikings. So here are a few of our Vikings, with their Comic Jams:



And my nice teacher hosts, with a glimpse of the library on the left.



This morning, I started my second day of visits at Sevland School. I like this wooden tower stuck in the middle:



And here's my group with their Comic Jams! A lot of them sent me messages on Instagram, which made me laugh because I usually work with younger children who aren't on social media, so I'm not used to getting messages from 11-12 year-olds, but it was very sweet of them.



Here's part of the giant Great Northern Race board game they helped me make. They suggested a Viking as one of the perils, and we were going to give him a sword, but then decided an attack chicken would be funnier.



I love seeing what ideas the kids have for their pug stories, especially when they draw them very boldly, like this one.



I like the 'Kaboosh' sound the lightning makes!



And this wins so far for most glam pug.



Lunch in the staff room, and you can just about see SILK Festival's Silje Maria Skaadel (in front), who was my excellent driver for most of the day.



And then we went to a very small school. The state had closed it, but the community wanted so badly to keep their school that they reopened it privately, as Kvalavag Montessori School. It's in a beautiful, wild-looking rocky area, and I had my nose glued to the car window the whole way.



They were a really fun, enthusiastic group of kids and funnily enough they all had mobile phones, so we had a massive selfie session at the end. (I wonder if any of them will pop up on my Instagram!)



Here you can see some pug drawings and a Comics Jam:



Poor pug is stuck in cheese on Pizza Planet:













Here's a lovely teacher, and SILK Festival's stalwart trouper Ellen Skaadel, who drove me on the last leg of that day's tour.



Thanks so much to the four schools for hosting me, and John, Silje and Ellen for looking after me!

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A man with social phobia gets followed by a naive and clumsy creature.

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The Oscar-winner's native Norway awarded Kove the Anders Jahre Cultural Prize tonight at a ceremony in Oslo.

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Which Nordic state had sovereignty over Iceland until 1918? Which state was allowed to discriminate against a transgender woman by annulling her marriage? Who disputed ownership of Eastern Greenland before the Permanent Court of International Justice? In preparation for the European Society of International Law's 11th annual conference, this year held in Oslo, test your knowledge of Nordic countries in international law with our quiz.

The post How much do you know about Nordic countries and international law? appeared first on OUPblog.

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On April 12, my daughter and I returned from our first-ever overseas adventure -- a week of school visits at a small International School near Trondheim, Norway. It was terrific - absolutely! - and paired with another three days of visits in Ellensburg, WA made for a whirlwind dance into spring :) As one could easily imagine with a little exploring of the hills near Stjørdal and Meråker, there are wolverines in Norway too. Not necessarily Thor and company from the pages of Harts Pass... but you just never know!

A full-blown, big-picture post about Norway later this afternoon.

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A music video for Norwegian musician Todd Terje.

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In the days following the terrorist attack in Paris on 11 January, thousands of people took to the street in solidarity with the victims and in defense of free speech, and many declared ‘Je suis Charlie’ on social media around the world. The scene is familiar with what we have seen in several other countries in the aftermath of major terrorist attacks.

The post Trust in the aftermath of terror appeared first on OUPblog.

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If you visit the island of Utsira (the one in the radio Shipping Forecast, in the North Sea, off the west coast of Norway), you may spot a little eeping Sea Monkey on one of the rocks. And you may wonder why it's there. Well, here is its story...



If you read my last two blog posts, you'll know I've been taking part as a barnebokforfatter (children's book author) in the SILK Festival in Skudeneshavn, on the island of Karmøy. When Utsira island librarian Margrethe Djønne saw me in the programme earlier in the year, she asked if Stuart and I would like to make a detour to Ustira for a couple nights, to visit their school. So after the festival, Margrethe (Maggie) and her mother picked us up at the local cafe and drove us from Skudeneshavn to Haugesund, where Stuart, Maggie and I caught the evening ferry boat.



Whenever we'd mentioned to Karmøy people that we were going to visit Utsira, they'd suck in air and shake their heads, warning us about the rough sea passage and telling us to lie down flat on the ferry to avoid getting sick. And that evening WAS quite windy.



We didn't sit up on the deck, no one did; everyone stayed on the lowest floor of the passenger section. And I thought the advice about lying down would just be for visiting tourists, who didn't have their sea legs. ...Nope. The ship was pitching like a galloping horse in slow motion. By the end of the 70-minute journey, EVERYONE was lying down flat.

But the advice was sound, no one got sick. At Utsira North Harbour, all the passengers put on their shoes and headed out into the darkness. And gosh, is it DARK on Utsira. Island resident and artist Marit Edie Klovning picked us up and drove us to a fisherman's house, where Maggie jumped out to collect some crab he'd caught for us, and his mother had prepared. Then Marit drove us all up the hill, stopping to turn the car headlights onto a mural on the water tower, painted of the island's first female mayor. The first female mayor in all of Norway, in fact, a midwife named Aasa Helgesen, who served from 1926 to 1928. In the dark, her massive head looked quite scary.




The car beams next lit up a white house, where we'd be staying for the next two nights. Maggie and Marit led us into the house, stocked the kitchen and showed us where the linens were, then disappeared back into the night. We lit some candles to make the place feel more cosy, delved into the food bags and feasted on crab and freshly baked bread.



We weren't exactly sure where we were. As the wind wuthered outside, we did a bit of exploring, first the kitchen cupboards:



I'd been talking with a lot of Scandinavian crime writers earlier in the week, so we got a little bit too imaginative about what Kylling, Farinsocker, Finger Salt and Grillkrydder might be. Next the bookshelves, where I pulled out these two rather special books:



We couldn't read anything, but the people in them looked rather jolly. I think the one on the left might be writer-illustrator Alex T Smith in a previous life. The one on the right might be one of my great-aunts or something.



We went to bed, the wind still howling. We woke before sunrise the next morning, and in the dark blue sky, I could see an old lighthouse outside our bedroom window. I ran around outside to see where we were, getting my socks all wet.



That white house in the middle is where we were staying. It's the Lighthouse artist residence, and it's where the island hosts people who come to work with the school or put on a local exhibition.

Here's a photo of the lighthouse again, taken a bit later in the day:



And the view from the base of the lighthouse:



I got dressed up in my Jampires costume and Marit picked me up in her car to take me to the school, while Stuart stayed behind, with his own plans to hike around the island.



I thought that we'd only driven a little bit of the island the previous evening, but I quickly realised we'd already covered almost the whole place. Utsira is very small! Here's a map, with the Lighthouse marked in red. The 'Utsira kommune' is in the same building as the Library, right next to the school:


Map from Google Maps

Utsira is basically a pile of rocks with a valley down the middle, a harbour at either end. I took this panorama later in the valley, and you can see a surprising amount of landmarks from a single location: the harbours, the school, the library, the restaurant, the shop.



Marit swung by her son's house, with a big split rock out the back, which is where she gets her married surname 'Klovning', which in English would be 'Clovenstone'. (Which is also the name of a place in Edinburgh and the country in my co-author Philip Reeve's book Goblins.)



And we swung by the South Harbour for a peek. That flat white building to the right of the red boat house is where people might also stay if they were overnatting on Utsira.



Then we arrived at the library! Wow, Utsira Library is well stocked! The first thing I saw was a little exhibition of Tove Jansson's Moomin books:



Maggie had put two of my books on display - There's a Shark in the Bath, Jampires and Oliver and the Seawigs - and I spotted quite a few other familiar names, too. Here's Maggie showing their Francesca Simon section. ('Rampete Robin' must be the Norwegian variation on 'Horrid Henry'.)



I drew a little poster for the library (something I often do, to make sure the flip chart pens really work):



And then the children arrived! My first group was the younger half of the school's 22 pupils. I showed my books to them and read Jampires, then we all drew Jampires together.



Jampires are a bit like vampires, but instead of blood, they suck jam out of doughnuts. I love how ours all had different personalities:



Then we talked about our favourite foods and they invented their own story creatures:



Here's a Pancakepire:



A Tacopire:



And a Pizzapire:



When the older half of the school arrived, we drew Sea Monkeys (from Oliver and the Seawigs and I led them in a Sea-Monkey-themed Comics Jam.



The idea was that we'd all draw four panels of a comic, but between each panel, we'd switch papers, so we'd be writing each other's stories. (Here's more information on running a Comics Jam.)



Utsira Library has a great comics collection for its size, and I wish I'd had more time to browse. Here are some interesting-looking comics Maggie showed me:





And picture books, too. This first one's a scrapbook of an artist's travel books, I think:







Maggie said that people don't tend to use the comics section very much, but I hope the kids I worked with will be inspired to explore a bit more in it. I mentioned my favourite comic, Calvin and Hobbes, which is called Tommy & Tigern in Norway, so maybe they can start with that one.

One funny thing about visiting Utsira: I'd assumed my visit would be kind of a big deal because they would get less visitors than your average school. But this was not the case! They have a decent budget for their cultural programme, a school cultural officer named Knut, and they bring in people regularly. So we didn't even have time to finish the Comics Jam because they were off to see an Oslo dance troupe perform! And I got to come along.



The troupe - Panta Rei Danseteater - led them in a warm-up, then put on a quite sophisticated modern dance about an old woman's diary, mortality and the passage of time.



After their performance, four of schoolchildren (who'd been working with the dancers) performed their own choreographed dance. And then the dancers sat on the floor and did a Question & Answer session. (And we all took a photo.)



The school theatre was new-built and gorgeous; apparently the community had been campaigning hard for the budget and won. The dancers had brought their own flooring, which rolled away into their van; then they pulled away the black curtain backdrop to reveal enormous windows overlooking much of the island. Amazing.



Lunch time with Maggie with Knut, the cultural officer, catered by the island's shop.



Maggie also asked if I wanted to meet the kindergarten children, and I said yes. But I was expecting they'd be four or five years old, and they turned out to be infants as young as a year old. (More of a day care, really.) They looked at me in slight bewilderment when I pulled out my ukulele. But they seemed to like it best when I drew a Jampire for them, and I left them, happily colouring it in.



Here's one of the mums, Katrine Klovning, collecting her son in a little onesie she'd knitted for him:



Stuart wasn't back when I returned from school, so I thought I'd set out by myself to explore the island, and went around behind the Lighthouse. Apparently Utsira is a birdwatching paradise; in peak season, there are more types of bird there than people. Oh look, North Utsira and South Utsira beach huts:



Even though I was wearing wellies, the ground was incredibly rough, and I have sudden visions of pitching onto my face and not being discovered by anyone but the birds and sheep before nightfall.



So I went back onto the main road, and met a fresh-faced Stuart coming up the hill. Hurrah! He'd already walked all the way around the rough parts of the island, but he came out again to walk along the roads with me.

I love this barn:



Such great textures and colours.





I made Stuart go all posey in his lovely new Norwegian jumper. (We actually bought it at a second-hand shop in London, still with the tags on. But we saw very similar jumpers being worn there, so he didn't feel like a silly tourist and wore it almost every day.)



Check out this Warhol-inspired barn:



And speaking of soup cans, we had to visit the shop, to see what sort of things would be on sale when it's the only shop on the island. It was a wonderful shop, with loads of fresh produce, pretty much anything you could want. But I thought the canned food section was the most interesting because of the mysterious (and occasionally funny) labels. (What is 'Snurring'? A herring that snores?)



I recall a childhood song that went, Fish balls, fish balls, yummy yummy fish balls/ fish balls, fish balls, eat 'em up, YUM. (Or was it 'fish heads'? Anyway, I got the song stuck in my head for awhile.)



Lots of Lapskaus.



Kjøttkaker and Sodd. Heh heh.



But we didn't eat out of a tin that evening, it was much better than that. Maggie had talked with Daniella De Vreeze and Hans Van Kampen, who run the island's restaurant, Dahmsgård Utsira. They weren't planning to be open that evening, as it's not peak season, but they opened just for us and Danielle made us one of the most tasty dinners I've ever had.



Not that it was overly fussy-fancy, it was just perfect; Daniella knew exactly how to prepare the mushroom sauce for the monkfish, and the vegetables were so tasty; the ice cream meringue dessert had some sort of special texture that was incredible.



And lovely wine to go with it. Not at all what we'd expected to find in such a remote place! Here are Marit and Stuart:



And we were also joined by Arnstein Eek and Atle Grimsby, who work for the Utstira Kommune administration. It's funny asking people there what they do for their job, because everyone ends up doing a lot of jobs on an island, so nothing's entirely clear. Atle first came there because he loves the birdwatching, and then never left.



The only reading preparation that Stuart and I had done was on the airplane, from a book by Charlie Connolly that I'd had kicking about the house for almost ten years, called Attention All Shipping: a Journey Around the Shipping Forecast. I'd never managed to get through it, so I ripped out the pages that we'd need (which was perhaps a bit naughty, but there you go). It was quite illuminating, and I learned that people from Utsira are called 'Sirabu' (not Utsirans). And, of course, our dinner companions knew all the people mentioned in the book, and Atle's Facebook-friends with Charlie.



We didn't get to see Daniella for most of the meal because she was busy cooking, and Hans helped her serve. But Hans disappeared for awhile to help with the washing up, then we got to see both of them for awhile. They're Dutch, and bought the old school house about four(?) years ago to do up as a restaurant. They'd never run a restaurant before, just an art gallery, but Danielle had done a lot of catering for the gallery - over a hundred people at times - so she knew lots about cooking already. I think they said that they visited Utsira, found out the site was up for sale, and came up with a business proposal, right there on the island, in three hours. They're pretty awesome. They remind me a bit of a Danish film called Babette's Feast, about a French woman who brings fine cuisine to a rugged little island in Jutland. There's one other place on the island you can eat out - a pub that serves pizza, chips, sausages, that sort of thing, but it's definitely worth popping into Dahmsgård Utsira, even if just for cake and coffee.



The next day was Art Day; I'd been talking with Marit about her work over dinner and really wanted to see her paintings and studio. And Maggie and a few others had mentioned that they wanted me to add to the mural collection of the island, and I said I'd be up for that. So Marit took Stuart and me to her place, where we met her family and had some lovely breakfast.



It was such a cosy house and table, her daughter was warm and friendly, and her grandson was super-cute. I love this photo, it looks like some sort of half-remembered Nordic painting.



Marit's husband used to work as a carpenter (and built their house, studio and workshop) but turned his hand in later life to becoming a fisherman, which he now does with their son.



Here's some lovely cinnamon cake Marit made:



And more nice packaging (this time it's pâté).



While I was talking with Marit's daughter, Marte Eide Klovning, I asked about her job, and it turned out that she's the island's mayor right now. She travels quite a lot, to go to meetings and things, so Marit juggles being a babysitting grandmother with making her artwork. I love the theatre poster hanging in her studio loo, with Marte on the left. I think she said it's a play about Aasa Helgesen, Utsira's (and Norway's) first female mayor.



Marit showed me a few of the paintings and drawings she had on display in the main part of the house:



This one in the kitchen's called The Maker, and has a real bit of lace stuck into it. Marit likes the idea of 'making' as much as 'painting'; she sees herself as much as a Maker as a Painter. I think I'm like that, too.



And here's a large one in the lounge. Until this trip, I never thought of Norwegian beaches as beautiful places, but they have soft white sand as good as Hawaii's (just less sun).



After coffee, we went around to the side of the house, to the separate building that's Marit's studio. You can see it there on the left, through the trees.



The first things I noticed were all the portraits on the back wall. Utsira had a Jubilee celebration of and Marit set herself the task of painting a portrait of every single woman on the island, from the youngest baby to a very old woman (104, I think). Many of them bought their portraits from her after the exhibition, but she still has some of them. I can't remember the exact number of portraits, but it was near 100.



The boxes were another part of the project; Marit likes looking for interesting driftwood on the beaches and she made these boxes out of bits she found. Again, there's one for each woman on the island, and it represents having a little space of one's one. Marit explained that a lot of people don't stay on the island, particularly women, and to keep living there happily, one really needs hobbies and a rich inner life. So these boxes are a bit like the things each one of them treasures around herself.





Marit had already sold this painting, but she showed me a postcard of it. I love the northern light on it; so atmopheric.



And this one, too. I once took a class at university on Northern European Landscape Art, and true to form, I've forgotten almost everything. But I have vague memories of other Scandinavian painters who use this sort of light in painting, and there's something very magical about it.



Here's a peek into two side rooms.



Marit's used some antique linens and lace effects in her paintings.



I was so pleased that Marit came to my talk on Skudeneshavn, and then took the time to show me around. Thank you so much, Marit!



The island prides itself on its mural artwork that's been springing up during the past few years. You see this light bulb as soon as you get off the ferry:



And there's a Norwegian video with a bunch more paintings shown here. I was starting to think I'd run out of time to paint a mural (which was okay with me) but in the last two hours, Marit kicked everyone into gear and raced me over to the school to paint a Sea Monkey on one of the rocks on the playground. I was quite happy with how it turned out, despite the rush, and I liked the location, where the little kids would be able to see it.



Then Marit and Arnstein Eek escorted me to another place to do a second mural, in a housing development by the North Harbour, and I expected to paint on one of the big blank walls. But that wasn't what they had in mind. Another artist, inspired by the Gaza conflict, had painted a sniper pointing a gun at a child with a balloon. And while the residents didn't mind the politics so much, they didn't like coming up the stairs in dim light and being confronted by a gun man. So they wondered if I could do something with it.

...Yikes! I didn't know what to think! Would the artist be angry with me for defacing his work? (They didn't manage to record the name of that particular artist.) What might I be saying, politically? I didn't know! And the ferry was leaving in 40 minutes. Marit helped me and we got to work.



Oh boy. What had I done? Well. Marit and Arnstein and another guy there seemed much happier about it.



The politics of Sea Monkeys. I don't even know; don't ask me to write a paper on that one. Also, we caught the ferry.



I was sad to leave. The Sirabu were so kind, and looked after us so well. The island is beautiful. I hope I can go back one day.



Big thanks to Maggie, Marit, the teachers, Arne, Arnstein, Daniella & Hans, Borislav the Bulgarian and the Englishman who both gave us lifts, everyone who pitched in to make the trip so wonderful. You can follow Utsira Kommune on Facebook if you want to follow their news. (I think the community is more active on Facebook than Twitter.) And they also keep a blog here.



The ferry ride back to Haugesund was much quieter, only about a quarter of the passengers were lying down, and some were reading and chatting. John Rullestad from the SILK Festival met us at the dock and took us back to the Viking Museum at Avaldsnes, which I'd visited on my first visit. (Stuart did a quick run around.) We had coffee there with John's wife Helga Rullestad and my new Danish friend from this year's festival, writer Lene Kaaberbøl. Oh, and of course, we dressed up.



Stuart's gone completely native.



Just before we left, Maggie handed me a bottle to put into my luggage. So this evening back in London, I took down to our neighbours gifts of Risebrød (chocolatey rice thingies) and brown cheese, and also brought along the bottle so we could all have a taste. Good stuff, Utsira Akevitt. Very strong. Thanks, Maggie! :)



(And well done, reader, if you got this far! I know this is WAAY too long of a blog post, but I did it, really, for myself, as a souvenir. I didn't want to forget anything!)









Goodbye, Norway. We miss you already. x

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Exciting, I got another page in the Haugesund Avis! Apparently the headline reads, Pencils in the Air, which I'm afraid is a bit of a stock phrase I use to get kids' attention while we're drawing. But it looks cooler in Norwegian. (Here's the whole article online.)



And here's lovely Stuart modelling for the SILK Festivalen Nordic Knitwear catalogue:



While I was in Skudeneshavn in February, I had waffles at Johannes' cafe and drew his portrait in the guest book. So this time, Stuart stopped by for waffles while I was doing school visits and spotted my picture in the cafe, framed! Johannes is the best; anyone visiting Skudeneshavn absolutely must stop by to see him.




My main festival event was a talk moderated by journalist Rosie Goldsmith, whom I'd first met in Dubai, and then Hay-on-Wye. Here she is in the festival Green Room, wearing the beautiful new jumper commissioned from and knitted by Skudeneshavn local, Silje Skaadel.



I went to another of Rosie's events earlier in the day and drew this picture:



Rosie was interviewing Dutch writer and journalist, Geert Mak, whose book In Europe was translated into a zillion languages and had a 35-part television series. His new book, In America: Travels with John Steinbeck documents the same road trip made by both men, more than 50 years apart.



I think I need a stronger prescription of glasses, as I had a hard time making out their faces from the distance, but here's the best I could do, drawing Geert:



And we got to have dinner with him and his excellent wife that evening; I hope we get to see them again some day.



We got to hear several good bands while we were at the SILK Festival, including a group called Poor Edward. (The Jampire approved.) It's kind of odd hearing Norwegians singing to a Norwegian audience in English, but they did have lovely voices.



On the way back, I managed to bash my Bakewell Tart hat on a door frame; here's Stuart being my excellent road manager and doing some surgery on it. (He managed to track down a shop selling red glitter glue surprisingly easily.)



One of the school events I did was in the Sea House with about 80 16-year-olds, and I taught them a bit about comics and led them in a Comics Jam.



The 16-year-olds were MUCH more shy about saying anything in English than the 11-13 year-olds I'd led the previous day. I really had to work to get them to volunteer ideas, but I think in the end that they got something out of it and, I hope, enjoyed it.



Here's a quick demo comic I made while they were jamming:



And a few of their Comics Jams. (It's a storytelling game, in which a different person draws each panel.)





Thanks to the enthusiastic teachers who took part!



I did a second Comics Jam session at Skudeneshavn Primary School with this gang:



I led them in designing characters inspired by Jampires, but which had their own food obsessions. (So they came up with Pizzapires, Chickenpires, Noodlepires, etc.) I was struck by how many Norwegian kids LOVE tacos. Apparently it used to be pizza, but now they're taco crazy. It's a think people there eat particularly on Friday nights.



Back in the festival Green Room, here's musician Maria Toresen, who taught me a new Shark song to use with kids when I present my Shark book. So now I have two shark songs! Thanks, Maria! :D



And I made a new friend! Here's Helga Rullestad with Danish fantasy and crime writer Lene Kaaberbøl. I had a good long natter with Lene and Rosie in their cottage and they're ace. I really want to read Lene's The Shamer Chronicles books.



We had a reception for the festival sponsors and got to listen to Moddi perform, good stuff.



And here's culture minister Jan Arve and his wife. (I drew his portrait on my last visit.)



This time in Skudenshavn, I made a foray into a fishing shop, which turned out also to have salvage stuff from old ships, including these two, rather odd, crystal deities.



Before we left, we got to go on a wonderful beach walk with our fab friends John and Helga Rullestad, who are a big part in running the festival. They have so much energy, it's incredible.



This is near where Helga likes to go swimming. It's been a warm summer in Skudeneshavn and she'd been swimming until two weeks ago.



Some more landscape photos:























Here's Stuart with Silje, who knitted Rosie's jumper:



And Helga and John, wearing a fine fascinator. Thanks so much for inviting Stuart and me to be a part of the festival! We had a brilliant time, and I hope the events went down well!



(Read Part 1 here.)

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Hello from Skudeneshavn in Norway! I've been doing intensive school visits today and Stuart's been traipsing about town, and we're both crashing in our guesthouse lounge having a rest before the official SILK Festival Opening Ceremony this evening.



We're staying in the same town I visited in February, Skudeneshavn, and it's great getting a chance to show Stuart around. (And if you're a burglar in England reading this, we have a big, scary German looking after our flat, so don't get any ideas.) We're staying at the guesthouse on the far right:



So here was my first visit this morning, to Grindhaug Primary School, where I showed the 11- and 12-year-olds how I made the Jampires picture book with David O'Connell (and the original comic book that inspired it). I led the group in drawing their own Jampire, then we talked about our favourite foods and designed creatures that could steal other food - Pizzapires, Chocopires, Spareribpires, etc. Then we used our characters to write stories in a big Comics Jam! Everyone finished with a four-panel comic, but each panel was drawn by a different person, so no one knew how their story would turn out. (When I explained about the word 'jamming' meaning something other than sticky fruit spread, they all knew the Bob Marley song, so that was good.)



And here's the second group, same ages, at Norheim Primary School!




I had a few minutes before all the kids were assembled when I could draw this poster for them:



Big thanks to everyone who looked after me for the day, including John Rullestad (not pictured here), Head of the Department of Culture, Jan Arve Hveding (who popped in to say hello), the culture coordinator (let me check her name!) and Head of Karmøy libraries Hanna Mulelid.



After Hanna drove me back to Skudenshavn, Stuart and I retired to the festival Green Room, where we found Norwegian writer Arne Svingen, who'd joined us at dinner the previous evening. Arne writes spooky books, mostly for older children, but all sorts, and does lots of school visits. He gave me a big list of Norwegian illustrators that I want to look up (I don't really know anything about Norwegian illustrators yet), and hopefully post links here. Here are a few, for starters, if you want to peek at their work:

* Ragnar Aalbu
* Stian Hole


* Øyvind Torseter
* Svein Nyhus
(More later!)



Speaking of spooky, I was a bit nervous of sitting in these two chairs in the Green Room; they looked like they might be alive.



But other than that, he Green Room's awfully cosy. I rewarded myself for the school visits a bit too thoroughly with lovely CAKE.



Okay, here are a few of the Comics Jams, in case anyone from the school is checking to see if their work got onto my blog! (And if you look here on my website, you can read a comic I made recently and find more comics here.)



A lot of the kids had never made any comics, so I was impressed with how well they did. Also, notice that they are in English. *gape* I hate to say this, but Norwegian kids write almost as well in English as a lot of the English children I've worked with.















And I'll include a few more Skudeneshavn photos, just to help me remember this place; it's awfully pretty.



Last night we had a music concert in a little house that wasn't a pub, exactly, but had the same nice feel to it.



And when we went for dinner at Smiå restaurant, the downstairs was packed with guys from this ship:





Another shot of our lovely guest house:



More news soon!

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Bendik Kaltenborn is an illustrator and designer living in Oslo. In addition, he is the co-founder of the Norwegian comic collective Dongery and has received recognition for his cartoons including the prestigious Ministry of Cultures ”Tegneserieprisen” award.

 

 

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Life hadn't changed much for Mari, 11, and her beloved elkhound dog Odin when the Nazis invaded Norway and some German soldiers moved into her village, Ytre Arna.  At least, not until one day in late August when she and Odin ran into two soldiers, nicknamed Scarecrow and The Rat by villagers, while berrying on the side of a mountain.  The soldiers were forcing her Jewish neighbor Mr. Meier, to walk at gunpoint despite his being injured and bleeding.  Feeling threatened by Odin's growling, Scarecrow tells Mari she will get both of them shot if she can't control her dog.

Mari is the youngest of three children and her family has always treated her in a babyish way, but now things are changing and Mari must change with them.  The Nazis have outlawed radios, news sources, even their traditional Norwegian dress; their king has fled to England and the government is being run by a Nazi puppet named Quisling.  It is suddenly a whole different world, but at least Mari has her constant companion Odin.  Only now, Odin has two enemies and they carry guns.

When Mari goes back to school in September, she is told not to trust anyone, one just doesn't know who has sided with the Nazis and who hasn't.  And when older sister Lise comes home from University in Oslo for a visit, she announces that she and her boyfriend will be married sooner than planned.  The reason - life is unsafe for unmarried Norwegian girls around the Nazis.

But the biggest surprise for Mari is discovering who is part of the Resistance, who isn't and which citizens are doing their bit to sabotage the Nazis in Ytre Arna whenever they can.  And it doesn't take long before Mari, like the rest of her family, even her grandmother, finds herself involved in these clandestine activities as well.  But is the price she pays for it just too much?

Odin's Promise is a real coming of age story.  At first, Mari is a shy, quiet girl who frightens easily, but the reader can see how the circumstances she finds herself in enable her to find the courage and strength to grow and to do what needs to be done, even in the face of overwhelming threat on the part of young impulsive Nazi soldiers.

Red Hats worn by Norwegian Children From: The Paperclip Campaign

Resistance stories are among my favorite kind of WWII narratives.  While I like the stories of hidden organized armed resisters, I really like to read about the ordinary citizens who loved their country so much that they not only refused to support the occupation, but actively did what they could to make thing more difficult, or even to just annoy their occupiers.  Mari, her friends and school children all over Norway wore red hats every do to show their loyalty, and irate the Germans.  Norwegians are very patriotic,  and were very loyal to King Haakon VII after he escaped the Nazis and that really comes across in Sandy Brehl's debut novel about Mari and her family.

There is lots of Norwegian culture included in Odin's Promise, particularly around the wedding of Mari's sister Lise, where outright defiance of Nazi orders was the real order of the day.  And be sure to read the Author's Note at the end of the novel to learn all about how Sandy came up with some of the ideas for Odin's Promise that give it such a feeling of authenticity.  And remember, there is a glossary included in the back matter that will help with both Norwegian and German words used.  And, just in case Sandy has peaked your curiosity about Norway and the Resistance in WWII, she has provided at very nice bibliography, including other middle grade novels about set in the same time with similar themes.

Odin's Promise is a well written, very well researched novel and will be available on May 17, 2014.  But you can read an excerpt on Sandy's website HERE

Or, if you would like to have your own personalized copy of Odin's Promise, just leave a comment and I will be choosing a winner used Random.org   Please provide a valid email in your comment so I can contact the winner.  You will have until May 6, 2014 to enter the giveaway.

This book is recommended for readers age 9+
This book was sent to me by the author

Odin's Promise is on tour at the following blogs:

April 21 - Erik at The Kid Reviews Books
April 24 - Rochelle Melander at the Write Now! Coach
April 28 - Suzanne Warr at Tales from the Raven
April 29 - Alex Baugh at The Children's War
April 30 - Margo Tanenbaum at The Fourth Musketeer
May 1    - Heidi Grange at Geo Librarian

FYI: Mention is made of the sign used by Norwegians to show solidarity and support for Norway and their exiled King Haakon VII.  The sign consists of the king's monogram and Churchill's V for victory:

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Non-Format recently revised their website and with the update came a slew of new work including Gridiron – a stellar typeface family for ESPN.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Those of you familiar with the Jackson 5 song I’ve referenced in my title are probably now throwing virtual rotten fruit in my general direction.  Still, I can’t say it isn’t accurate.  This weekend I am pleased to be a speaker at the SCBWI Indiana conference in Zionsville, IN.  I haven’t been back in Indiana since my last college reunion in 2010.  It’ll be good for me to fill the lungs with some pure uncut Midwestern air once more.  A gal need to fill up before heading back into the NYC fray.  While you read this I may be zooming up into the clouds above, so enjoy some ephemera in my absence.

• Sure.  On the one hand Spain’s reading net, highlighted by Boing Boing this week, looks AMAZING.  But while it may work well for Spanish children, you just know that our kids would be leaping and jumping all over that thing within seconds.  Plus, there appears to be a gigantic hole in it that’s just asking for trouble.  Or maybe that’s how you get in.  That would make sense.

• Views From the Tesseract has reached its 100th post and as a result Stephanie came up with What Stories Have Taught Me in 100 Small Lessons.  It’s nice without being sentimental.  Plus, if you’re in the market for good quotes from children’s books, this here’s the place to go for your one stop shopping!

• AAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!  Thanks to Marci for the link.

• My l’il sis is at it again.  This time she came up with a way to create comic book shoes.  I cannot help but think that this might be possible with old Advanced Readers Copies.  Or YA craft programs.  Yeah.  I think you can tell that the next time I go to the Newbery/Caldecott Banquet I’m recruiting Kate to help me with my outfit.  She made one shoe superheroes and one supervillains.

For the record, she also did a post on how to make a hollow book.  If you read it, just remember that the world is FULL of extra Harry Potter 7s.  One or two less isn’t gonna hurt anything.

• And while we’re feeling crafty, Delightful Children’s Books has come up with such a good idea: a Bookish Advent Calendar.  Genius!  I may have to steal this idea myself.  If I do, though, I’d better get cracking.  Start placing holds now.  December is practically nigh!

• On the more serious side of things, Marjorie Ingall writes great posts no matter where she is, but it’s her titles that consistently blow me away.  At the blog Modern Loss (a site for “navigating your life after a death”) Marjorie wrote 5 Kids Books That Go There: The best of the ‘talking to kids about death’ genre (drumroll, please).  It’s a strong five.  I’m trying to think what I might add.  This year’s Missing Mommy by Rebecca Cobb, maybe.  That book ripped my heart from my chest and danced a tarantella on the remains.

• *sigh*  Well, if nothing else, this clarifies for me who exactly “McKenna” is and why folks keep asking me to buy her books.  And Saige, for that matter.  Alexandra Petri writes a rather amusing piece on what has happened to American Girl.

I’m far less upset about the fact that they’re turning What Does the Fox Say? into a picture book.  For one thing, I’m weirdly thrilled that the Norwegian YouTube hit sensation has a Norwegian illustrator.  And one that clearly has a sense of humor.  Hey!  Whatever it takes to get some new names from overseas into the American market.  At the very least, I want to see it (though I’m fairly certain it is NOT the first picture book to be based on a YouTube sensation).  Thanks to Playing By the Book and Matt for the info.

• Daily Image:

Today, I show something I may have shown before.  It’s lithographs of famous books where the text from the story makes up the image itself.  Here are some examples:

A Christmas Carol

Alice in Wonderland

A Little Princess

Thanks to Marci for the link!

 

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Maggie Steele, the storybook heroine who vaults over the moon, has been attracting thousands of visitors from around the world. So many visitors, in fact, that she’s using a time zone map to keep track of them all.* People are … Continue reading →

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Not long ago I reviewed a book by John Boyne on my blog Randomly Reading called The Terrible Thing that Happened to Barnaby Brocket.  This was a really good fantasy novel about a boy who floats and must be weighed down to stay on the ground.  Barnaby has a dog named Capt. W.E. Johns, which caused me to laugh when I read that.  There is no explanation why that is the dog's name, but I (and others, I am sure) know exactly who Johns is.

Captain W.E. Johns was a very prolific writer with 169 books to his credit.  But he is probably best known for two of his series books: 96 'Biggles' books for boys and 11 'Worrals' books for girls.  Worrals, or Joan Worralson, flies for the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, part of the RAF.  I reviewed Worrals of the W.A.A.F in 2011.  Biggles, or James Bigglesworth, learned to fly in World War I and continued flying right into World War II and beyond.

Biggles Defies the Swastika (#22 in the series and written in 1941), begins in April 1940.  A Major with the RAF, Biggles has been doing some work in Oslo when he wakes up one morning to discover that the Nazis have invaded Norway.  Fortunately, Biggles has false identity papers naming him as Sven Hendrik, allowing him to pass as a Norwegian who supports the Nazis until he can get to his plane and out of Norway.  Arriving at the aerodome in Boda on a stolen Nazi motorcycle, Biggles finds it is under Nazi control now.  Somehow, Biggles fools the Germans into thinking he is a quisling who speaks fluent German and is made a leutnant on the spot by the German commandant there.  Now under a safe cover, Biggles gets himself to the Swedish border on a his stolen motorcycle and crosses over to safety.

But not for long.  At the British Consul, he is told to return to Norway to do some ntelligence spying and that his friends and fellow fliers Ginger and Algy will contact him as soon as possible.  Back in Norway, he hears that the Germans are looking for a British pilot named Bigglesworth who was spotted in Oslo and wanted by the Germans.  Luckily, as Sven Hendrik, Biggles is ordered to look for himself and given a Gestapo pass that will allow him freedom to get around without question.

Biggles soon discovers that his old nemesis Oberleutnant Erich von Stalhein is in Norway and is desperate to capture him.  Biggles calls Gestapo headquarters and tells them he has information that Bigglesworth is in Narvik and he is on his way there.  But along the way, he runs into some captured British sailors.  He tells them he's really a British pilot and concocts a plan for them to tell their captors that they saw Bigglesworth escape.  In Narvik, Biggles finds other British POWs, including his old friend Algy, who was sent over to help him.  He manages to free all the prisoners, but is then ordered back to Boda Aerodome to be questioned by von Stalhein.

Before that can happen, Biggles is ordered to Stavanger airfield by the British to gather intelligence about Nazi defenses there and then to go to Fjord 21, where he runs into his other old friend Ginger.  It is time to get out of Norway now that they have the needed intelligence, but Biggles refuse to go with Algy.  Meanwhile, Algy, after being freed at Narvik has returned to Boda to find Biggles.

Biggles returns to Boda, finds Algy and they make their way to Fjord 21, Ginger in his plane and escape, only to find that the Fjord is now occupied by Nazis and that Ginger is missing.  But not for long. Ginger tries to rescue Biggles and Algy, but things go wrong and Algy is again captured by the Nazis.  Biggles, with the help of his Gestapo pass, learns that the British warships are sailing right into a trap.  He can do nothing about it though because of growing suspicion about who he really is.  He accepts a ride in a water plane back to Boda and von Stalhein, because he has no choice.  During the flight, Biggles overtakes the pilot.  Flying low enough for the German to jump into the water, Biggles orders him out, but not before telling him they must get together after the war and have dinner together (yes, he really did say that).

Now flying a German plane, Biggles is attacked by none other than Ginger.  But then Ginger is attacked by a German plane and goes down.  Luckily, Biggles is able to rescue Ginger, tells him about the trap the British warships are heading into and has Ginger drop him off to find Algy.  Ginger delivers his warning, sets off to find Biggles and Algy, but is captured by the Germans.  Meanwhile, Bigglesand Algy are also captured by von Stalhein at Boda.  But when Ginger arrives with his German captor, the three of them manage to overpower him, steal a German plane and fly safely off to England and further adventures - lots of them!

All this action/adventure tokes place in only a few days.  The back and forth between Oslo, Boda and Stavanger were a bit like watching a ping pong games with airplanes, but I never got confused, in part because of the simplicity of the writing.  It is not great literature, is sometimes politically incorrect and everyone smokes, but Johns seems to have understood his young readers.  There is just action, constant movement, and a feeling of being in control, something young readers probably found comforting in wartime Britain.

If you are going to read them for the first time, don't take them too seriously, just have some fun, after all, they feel a bit campy nowadays.  And I thought the rivalry between Biggles and von Stalhein had shades of the later rivalry between Snoopy and the Red Baron.  I did, however, learn that anti aircraft flak was refered to as archie, as in 'you will probably run into lots of archie when you fly a German Dornier over Britain.'

While I have read most of the Worrals books, I seem to only have Biggle Defies the Swastika - but I have two copies of it, somehow.  And both smell like they just came out of my gram's attic.  Luckily, since Biggles is still somewhat popular, now editions of his books have become available recently, for your reading pleasure.

Johns with his novels

Biggles has has lots of influence on people's lives.  Here are some examples:
A Life of Biggles by Hilary Mantal
I Longed to Fly with Biggles by John Crace
Good Eggs and Malted Milk: Has Biggles Stood the Test of Time by Giles Foden

More information on Biggles and his creator Captain W. E. Johns can be found Collecting Books and Magazines (a great site for all kinds of information about kids books from the past.

This book is recommended for readers age 12+
This book was purchased for my personal library

This is book 3 of my 2013 Pre-1960 Classic Children's Books Reading Challenge hosted by Turning the Pages

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By Simone Frizell Reiter

According to Statistics Norway, around 10,000 children under the age of 18 in Norway experience divorce every year. These numbers do not take into account non-married couples that split up. Therefore, in reality far more children experience parental separation.

Status of knowledge

Focus has been on the adversity of parental divorce, emphasising the support and safety an intact family gives. The child may experience conflict, neglect or parental alienation, and insecurity about who belongs to the family. Not only the separation itself but also the period preceding and following the divorce may disturb the child’s well-being. Several studies show that parental conflict, that may be harmful to the child, is perpetuated even after the divorce. However, other studies show that when the parents are able to reduce the level of conflict after the divorce, the divorce is not exclusively negative if the child is moved from a family situation with conflicts to a more harmonious one. Society’s attitude toward divorce has changed as divorce has become more common. Prejudice and stigma are less pronounced. A natural assumption is therefore that mental problems related to divorce are also reduced. However, more recent studies conclude that adults, who experienced divorce in childhood, have more mental health problems than adults from intact families.

Divorce and reduced parental contact are closely linked. Children with loss of parental contact after divorce report more mental health complaints compared to children with preserved contact. Lack of attention, support, and economic insecurity may explain some of the negative effects of a parent’s absence. However, even when provided with at step-parent after divorce, these children report a lower level of well-being than children with preserved parental contact. Biological parents therefore seem to be of particular importance. Regular and frequent contact with both parents after divorce may also reduce the potential harmful effects of parental absence as seen in sole-custody households. Parental support is an important, independent risk factor to children’s sense of achievement and well-being. It is shown that as children’s relationship with their fathers weakens after divorce, they also lose contact with paternal grandparents and stepfamily.

Studies show that when divorce is followed by strong conflict, children may be used as a weapon between the parents. In such conflicts contact with one of the parents may be limited or brought to an end. The child is forced to ally with one of the parents, and suffers from the psychological stress this causes.

What is the concern?

Family law in Western societies generally aims at preserving dual parental contact for the child after divorce. This is also the aim of the Norwegian legislation. The Norwegian Child Act states that the parents may come to an agreement on where the child should primarily reside. However, if the parents cannot agree on this, the court has to decide which one of the parents the child should stay with. In practical life this has, in most cases, been the mother, while the father has been reduced to a weekend parent. Due to this, the experience in Norway is that when it comes to loss of parental contact, children of divorce primarily lose contact with the father. This effect is in some cases strengthened by the primary caregiver intentionally sabotaging the other parent’s visitation rights. To prevent this, the Norwegian legislation has sanctions, but these are very rarely used. A suggestion has been to introduce shared residence as a preferred solution after parental divorce, and that parents who sabotage this agreement may get restrictions on their contact with the child.

Most parents choose to take an active role in their child’s upbringing, and only a small group is absent, either by choice or circumstances. Therefore, social benefit systems have built in mechanisms to compensate the lacking of the absent parent by high financial contributions to sole providers left alone in charge. The downside of these benefits is that one of the parents can gain financially on monopolising the contact with the child and in some cases the sole provider actively sabotages or reduces the other parent’s contact, only to gain financially. This mechanism is strengthened by the Norwegian child maintenance system, where the level of economic support is linked to the amount of time spent with the child. Parents who share the custody in equal parts do not pay any child maintenance to each other. The combination of the systems has turned many fathers in to “child maintenance machines” because the mother would lose so much financially, sharing the custody of the child with the father. The benefits therefore undermine the aim to gain shared custody, and deprive the father of the possibility to have a close relationship with his child.

The concept of “parental alienation syndrome” is used to describe the condition where the child is alienated against one of the parents. If the government wants the children’s voice to be heard in custody conflicts, they must take into account that the child is already involved in a process of demonization and slander of one of the parents. From the literature, we know the term folie à deux. The government should be careful not to act in a game that can be characterized as folie à troi (madness shared by three).

In practice, it is difficult to have an equal amount of contact with both parents unless the child lives in two places equally. What is important to consider is whether advantages of maintaining a close relationship with both parents outweigh the disadvantages of having to change residence, for instance every week or every second week. Equally shared legal custody is not the same as having the child living in two residences fifty-fifty.

The experience is that the Child Act’s intention of parental agreement on a solution of custody between equal parties does not work. This is because the court, when presented the case, is legally bound to choose a single residence and almost exclusively chooses the mother.

On the basis of this knowledge it is important that the government puts effort in protecting the child’s right to have contact with both parents. This work must be as unprejudiced as possible. It is not acceptable that we continue with a practice in which the legislation allows the systematic favoring of one part in conflicted divorces.

Simone Frizell Reiter is a PhD candidate in the Department of Clinical Medicine at the University of Bergen, Norway, and the author of the paper ‘Impact of divorce and loss of parental contact on health complaints among adolescents’, which appears in The Journal of Public Health.

The Journal of Public Health aims to promote the highest standards of public health practice internationally through the timely communication of current, best scientific evidence.

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Image credit: Divorce and child custody. By Brian Jackson, iStockphoto.

The post Two parents after divorce appeared first on OUPblog.

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